The Old is New Again
"Absolutely, when we sit together in the future with different Iraqi parties to talk about the future of this area, we will have more power."
"But Peshmerga are not taking this like our opportunity. What they are doing is filling the gaps that the Iraqi army left. They are defending and securing different Iraqis here -- Turkomans, Arabs, Christians and Kurds."
Ala Talabani, Kirkurk Kurd representative in Iraqi parliament
The war being waged by ISIL Sunni terrorists against the Shia-led government of Iraq is close to Kirkuk. ISIL militias have clashed with the Peshmerga and they would prefer not to, while their plans bring them closer to Baghdad. The Peshmerga are warriors with a fearsome reputation of defending their own, because if they don't, they know no one else will. The Kurds have been given the short end of opportunity traditionally, and now they see their own country in reflection of their national aspirations tantalizingly close to reality.
All the better for them if they retain Kirkuk and the oilfields adjoining the area. They will prosper and become both socially-politically and financially secure with the annexation of the oilfields and refineries. They have already established Kurdistan in the North of Iraq, as a well-organized and institutionalized and protected enclave for their people. It simply remains to finalize the process with the recognition of their need to finally have a sovereign geography of their very own.
Their strategy is to withhold themselves from the conflict now embroiling Iraq, outside of their own territory which they will defend from all hostility in protection of their own. They are prepared to declare their final independence from Iraq, and it would only reflect justice if a slice of Syria, Turkey and Iran followed, to incorporate the Kurdish populations there into a greater Kurdistan, reflective of their historical place in the geography.
The Kurdish red, white and green flag that now flies from a flagpole in Kirkuk where the Iraqi flag had rippled in derision as Iraqi soldiers fled in disarray, leaving behind as they did in Mosul, the U.S.-provided weapons and humvees and other military vehicles that were meant to support the U.S.-trained combat platoons of Iraq, expresses their permanence and their determination to declare their independence.
It is now abundantly clear from what has occurred in Mosul and Tikrit, and now Tal Afar, that Iraq's Sunnis who once provided Saddam Hussein with his dedicated military have thrown in their lot with the Sunni ISIS, though they too deplore the horrible excesses of the fanatical Islamists. A decade after Saddam's Sunni military were dismissed by the U.S. they are returning with the arrival of the jihadists in common purpose; to oust the ruling Shiite majority from power.
"It is Baathists from Tal Afar who enabled ISIS to take over the town. They have a strong presence and are very well organized. This is a return of Saddam's men", announced a senior Iraqi intelligence officer from the area. While Kurdish Peshmerga forces protect the Kurdish town of Sinjar, Tal Afar about 12 kilometres away is held by ISIS and Iraqi Sunnis. Peshmerga troops armed with rifles and machine guns mounted on pick-up trucks are prepared to ensure they go no further.
U.S. Humvees circle the desert scrubland, watched by Peshmerga soldiers: "Those are ISIS and other insurgents", a Peshmerga fighter called out to his commanding officer of the insurgents running "reconnaissance missions" from Tal Afar, once the pride of American military ousting insurgents to win the "hearts and minds" of locals. Millions were invested in security services in Tal Afar with over 5,000 American troops deployed there to secure it for the Iraqi military.
It's where abandoned military bases built by the Americans stand, huge structures with concrete bomb-blast pillars. Refugees from Tal Afar report that the "same men who were fighting against the United States are now fighting with ISIS." The more things change the more they stay the same. The old is new again.
Labels: Conflict, Crisis Management, Iraq, Islamism, Kurds, Security, Terrorism
posted by Pieface @ Thursday, June 19, 2014
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